Anyone Cell Counting?

Check out Kai's website. Here is a link to his recommendations for a microscope.

http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Microscope_use_in_brewing

 

I am just learning to do this. A buddy of mine is a microbiologist and has been hooking me up with stuff. He said microscope needs to be at least 1000X. BKYeast also says the same thing in his How To Build A Home Yeast Ranch posting.

 

I recently bought one of these:

http://www.amazon.com/AmScope-T490B...1401382317&sr=8-5&keywords=microscope+amscope

Have used it a few times, works great. You can probably find a similar model for less money, but I wanted the ability to connect to a digital camera at some point in the future.

I've got some harvested and washed yeast as well as a partial packet of yeast I placed in some sterile tubes in February. Planning on cracking those soon to take a look at viability for ~3 month old yeast.

 

a microscope and a hemocytometer slide are all you need.

I have lots of new hemocytometer slides and would be willing to trade for some good beer

 

Used to do CBCs with a hemocytometer back in the day when I was in lab school. Have no interest in counting cells again. I hate microscopy because it instantly gives me a major headache.

 

Basically you put a drop on a slide with some dye and you count. Takes about 5 minutes.

 

White Labs used to have a handy PDF made by Lisa White going over the process. The link for it on their site is no longer working. It also seems they have spread that info out over several pages instead of having it in a concise format. Anyway, here are links to some of those scattered pages...

http://www.whitelabs.com/beer/microscope-training
http://www.whitelabs.com/content/microscope-training-0
http://www.whitelabs.com/content/cell-countingviability-testing-0

 

If homebrewing ever becomes so serious to me that I have to count cells on a hemocytometer again, I'm quitting the business.

Step up your starter a couple times for ales. Double that for lagers. Done. And Done. Where's my beer? I'm so fucking thirsty!

 

I've been thinking about it. I have a lovely microscope from grad school that no longer gets any use. I just don't have my house space configured for this type of thing yet. Not sure it would become a regular part of my brewing though. Part of me wants to do stuff like this for the sake of exploring the hobby and part of me wants to do the minimum amount to make delicious beer. I can definitely do that without my microscope.

 

Well you can sign me up, but point me to the keg at the "been there, done that" table. My glass needs fillin'.

 

Point appreciated but, while you are brewing at a homebrewing scale, using a yeast viability / cell count calculator like mrmalty or yeastcalculator.com is fast and produces satisfactory results based on my experience. Heck I just made a starter yesterday using 5.5 month old East Coast Yeast bottles that are down to 25% viability and feel confident in the guidance those sites gave me, despite understanding the cell counting / microscope process and working at a commercial brewery.

Microscopes, Hemacytometers, and cell counting make more sense if brewing on a commercial scale and repitching yeast for several generations. Also, if and when you get to a commercial brewing level, you most likely won't be doing that sort of work initially anyway. Plenty of time to learn how to hone those skills after you have been cleaning kegs and packaging bottling runs for a significant amount of time if you know what I'm saying!

Cell counts at the homebrew level also make sense if you have some lab experience / already own the equipment. Other than that I'd say doing so on a homebrewing scale is more about making you "feel" more advanced simply for doing it

 

As for "anything to help" see my second to last post with the white labs links that you already read and clicked "like" on. Basically it's just a matter of getting an even sample, knowing your dilution rate, using the above mentioned equipment to stain and plot your sample into squares, focusing on the middle and outside corner squares, doing counts, knowing which cells to count as viable, and scaling up. Remember that the meth. blue dye is supposed to stain dead cells, but there are lots of cells that get dyed that you aren't supposed to count as dead. Mainly "budding cells" that are at least 1/2 the size of the mother cell.

P.S. Depending on the size / bank roll of the commercial brewery you land a gig with, they might even be using more modern technology like an automated counter. Still errors can occur with those, but just be aware that the meth. blue staining and hand counting method isn't the only option. Some breweries with good inline ph testing equipment will simply look for a rise in yeast brink ph of roughly 0.5 ph points due to autolysis and stop using the yeast once that occurs. Many ways to skin the cat!

 

Don't forget also that some might actually find the process of measuring and examining yeast to be interesting and fun. Not everything needs to be about the end result. There are those that find the journey just as rewarding. Isn't that part of the reason why you brew your own beer?

 

Fair enough. Underlying point appreciated / undeniable. Although on this specific example that I personally don't find fun (my bias), I will have to say touche slightly reluctantly knowing full well that you are right